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Food & Drink
How to survive a shipwreck
By Emily Smith, CNN • Published 26th October 2011
They were able to make sturdy shelters from bamboo, pick up radio signals from Hawaii, design a pedal-powered car and house many frequent visitors, but still they couldn't manage to escape the island where they were shipwrecked.
The fictional tale of seven castaways on TV show Gilligan's Island entertained millions around the world for years. But how can you avoid getting into a real-life Gilligan's Island situation?
Here's the
guide to surviving a shipwreck if you should get into trouble sailing the high seas.
1. Preparing for launch
Before leaving dry land it is vital that to have everything you might need in the event of an emergency. "As a minimum guide, items you need to call for help should be high on the list," says Tony Wafer from the UK-based
Royal National Lifeboat Institution
This includes a VHF radio to communicate with other mariners, flares and, depending on how far you're traveling, an emergency position-indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) or a personal locator beacon (PLB). These items will help to draw attention to your boat and all those on board should you get into trouble.
Life jackets that are regularly checked are also a must, as well as a life raft in case you have to abandon ship.
Mystery of lost 19th century 'ghost ships'
2. Pack the essentials
If you have to abandon ship, you want to make sure you've got what you need while waiting to be rescued. Wafer recommends preparing a "grab bag" of basic survival gear. That includes documents, keys, flares, water, a hand-held VHF radio and spare batteries for the VHF.
"A lot of what we advise you to take centers on how far offshore you are and when you might reasonably expect rescue," says Wafer. If you're going further consider adding to your bag more flares, water, food rations and thermal gear to combat cold weather.
3. Getting into trouble
One of the first things to ask is, can you fix the problem? "If you have the tools, spares and knowledge to fix it then attempt to do so if safe," Wafer says.
If your boat is taking on water, find the leak and stem the flow using whatever you can, such as sails or cushions. But if the hole is too big or you're not able to contain it, then call the coastguard for help and get everyone ready to abandon the vessel.
Collect your grab bag, put on your life jackets and assemble at the back of the boat where the life raft will be launched.
4. Abandoning ship
Wafer stresses you should only abandon ship if you know your boat is sinking and cannot be recovered. "A life raft is a last resort," he says. "Stay on the boat for as long as possible as it is a greater target for search and rescue crafts to find you."
If you have no other option but to leave your boat, keep your energy up by drinking water and eating the supplies from your grab bag. Carbohydrates are best for energy. Use flares and your EPIRP and PLB to attract attention from rescuers.
5. Ship to shore
While Gilligan and the crew were able to head to land and set up home there, experts recommend staying put in the water. It can be tempting to try to swim to land if you see it in the distance, but Wafer says the best thing to do is to stick together as a group. The larger target will make it easier for rescuers to spot you. Wafer explains that staying together will help to conserve heat and energy. Concentrate on looking after any injured people and raising the alarm to be rescued.
By following these guidelines you can increase your chance of being found safe and sound.
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Oakland, Berkeley, And East Bay News, Events, Restaurants, Music, & Arts
What is it with the third installments in superhero film franchises? For whatever reason and, oh, let's just call it the lack of fresh ideas commingled with the love of money they always strike out swinging their third time up to bat. It happened with Superman, when Richard Pryor became a superfriend hatching the ridiculous plot that spawned Office Space; it happened with Batman, when director Joel Schumacher hired Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey and turned the serial into summer camp; and it happened with X-Men, when major characters were picked off for no good reason other than to make way for lesser superdudes and duds. Now we're faced with brand-new cinematic villainy in the guise of Spider-Man 3, which is overstuffed (three villains), overlong (at more than two hours and twenty minutes), and undercooked (plot points include amnesia and alien goo).
Once more Sam Raimi is directing Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's comic-book creation, and you can almost feel the fatigue: His weariness is as contagious as a yawn. Whatever its precursors had going for it heart, mostly, an organ almost as seldom used as the brain in comic-book movies Spider-Man 3 isn't even terribly interested in the title character anymore. This is fine, to a point; after all, what made Spider-Man such an intriguing departure from its Spandex-clad predecessors was that it was as much about Peter Parker's angst and affections as about the powers afforded him by a radioactive spider bite. As in the earliest comics, Spider-Man was nothing more than Spider-Boy, a guilt-wracked and love-struck high-school senior who found joy only when swinging among Manhattan skyscrapers.
But somewhere between that first joyous woo-hoo and this movie, Raimi and the revolving door of writers David Koepp gave way to Alvin Sargent, who is now joined by Sam and brother Ivan became too enamored of making Spider-Man movies in which the hero is but a bit player, a shrug in his own story. We don't even see much of the costumed character till late into the first act here; indeed, his very first fight amid the NYC skyline and its alleyways takes place out of costume, when Peter is snatched off his scooter by one of the movie's trio of villains in this case, Harry "Goblin Jr." Osborn (James Franco), who's still out to avenge the death of his daddy (Willem Dafoe) till a bump on the head makes him forget that he wants to kill his bestest friend in the whole wide world.
What's worse, the franchise's earnestness, its calling card, now feels forced stunted, even. The relationship between Peter (Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) has ground to a standstill. That passionate upside-down, rain-soaked kiss from the first film feels like a thousand movies ago. They're no further along now than they were the first go-round, when the dorky science student was wooing his longtime next-door infatuation. They're in love but not exactly lovers not people who've almost died for each other time and time again and all they do is whine and moan at each other, to the point where Peter is driven to date lab partner Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard). Gwen seems an infinitely better catch than the perpetually shrill and inexplicably selfish MJ, whose Broadway career takes a nosedive after it's revealed that, you know, she's actually a lousy singer.
It all just feels so ... Fantastic Four, so dopey and forgettable and crafted out of second-rate cheese. The interesting villains (Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus decent but ultimately tortured souls corrupted by insatiable greed and arrogance) have been replaced by computer-generated leftovers, chief among them Thomas Haden Church's Flint Marko, a felon whose shape is shifted by an atom-scrambler that renders him the Sandman. Dafoe and Alfred Molina were Wagnerian villains who pummeled Spider-Man with great cruelty and glee. More important, they were always onscreen, there in the flesh to break a few bones. Church is often nothing more than a computer-generated dust cloud or a skyscraper-size ball of mud a special effect that's none too special.
And then there is Venom, the alien entity who initially takes over Peter Parker before leaping, like a squid made of tar, onto the waiting flesh of Eddie Brock (a wasted Topher Grace), Peter's photojournalist rival at The Daily Bugle. A notable Spider-Man foe for years in the comics, Venom doesn't make a terribly good cinematic villain chiefly because we don't know squat about who or what he or it is, aside from a "symbiote" that amplifies Peter's worst instincts and turns him from a nebbish into an asshole in a silly and wholly inappropriate song-and-dance number straight out of Staying Alive. And Venom like every other character fighting for face time in an overplotted picture is barely in the film, here only so he and Sandman can face off with the lil' Goblin and Spidey in a finale so slapdash and silly it wouldn't even pass muster in a comic book (something to do with a taxi cab, a dump truck, and Mary Jane suspended in a web over Manhattan). Cobweb-slinger is more like it.
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subset: commoncrawl


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We are in a time of increased tensions, uncertainties and changes in the Catholic Church . Particularly troubling is the loss of moral authority resulting from the continuing sexual abuse crisis and evidence of institutional coverup. The purpose of this site is to examine what is happening by linking to worldwide news stories, particularly from the English speaking church and the new breath of fresh air blowing through the church with the pontificate of Pope Francis. Romans 8:38
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Teachers quit, parents withhold money over Catholic school morality clause
Doug Oakley Oakland Tribune May 21, 2014 OAKLAND -- Catholic school teachers under the Diocese of Oakland are quitting and parents are withholding donations over new faith and morals contract language teachers at 54 schools must sign that references their private lives. Diocese of Oakland spokesman Mike Brown said Wednesday three teachers at Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland and two at St. Joseph Notre Dame High School in Alameda have quit over the new contract language. O'Dowd parents and teachers plan a protest at the school May 30 in the morning and later that day at the Diocese of Oakland offices. The new contract language, authored by Diocese of Oakland Bishop Michael Barber, that says that in their "personal and professional lives" teachers must "promote behavior in conformity with the teaching of the Roman Catholic faith in matters of faith and morals." Parents, teachers and students upset with the new contract language worry teachers could be fired for being gay, having sex outside marriage or even for using birth control. Kathleen Purcell, a history teacher at Bishop O'Dowd and director of the school's career partnership program, got her contract for next year and signed it but crossed out the two new paragraphs that reference the faith and morals clause. Her contract was not accepted and she refused to back down. "I could have taken back what I did and said I could go along, but I can't do that," Purcell, 62, said. "My life is about advancing civil rights." Purcell said last year she delivered a eulogy for a gay friend at her funeral that was videotaped and put on the Internet. The way she see's her teacher contract, that would not be allowed and she could be fired. Annette Tumolo, a gay parent of an O'Dowd junior said she is considering pulling her daughter out of the school and she may not write the $5,000 donation check she pledged to the school on top of the $15,000 a year tuition. "We were attracted to the school because of its inclusive and diverse nature," Tumolo said. "We want a moratorium on this new wording because the environment and the culture of the school will be damaged by it." Barber responded to the uproar over his new contract language in a question and answer forum in the Diocese of Oakland newspaper, "The Catholic Voice," last week. "I have heard it said that we are targeting teachers who might be gay," Barber said. "This is manifestly untrue. The Catholic Church treats all people, regardless of sexual orientation, as children of God. Sexual orientation does not lessen the dignity, worth or rights of any person. Pope Francis said, 'Who am I to judge?' I say the same." He also said he has no "interest in monitoring or prosecuting personal private lives." If that is the case, Tumolo said Barber should just take the language out of the contract. "Good intentions are not ephemeral," Tumolo said. "He could leave tomorrow but the language could still be in the contracts for someone else to interpret differently." Eva Marlatt, director of academic support at O'Dowd, did not sign her contract because it represents "an unworkable dilemma forced upon us: the moral dilemma between our loyalty to a wonderful (and wonderfully diverse) school community and the demands of our personal sense of integrity and our dedication to social justice and civil rights." She said the new language was introduced by the diocese with no dialogue on April 15 and teachers had until May 1 to sign. Brown said he hopes parents read what the bishop has said in "The Catholic Voice" before they make decisions on donations or enrollment for their kids. He also had a message for teachers: "Wait to make that dramatic decision about your job until you are able to attend a proposed meeting that probably will happen next week with the Bishop at O'Dowd. Let's not give up yet."
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2014 Mercedes-Benz S550 Sedan Review : When Will 2014 Mercedes Benz S550 Sedan Review Be Released
Saying that the just lately overhauled 2014 Mercedes-Benz S550 Sedan can drive itself is simply every now and then an exaggeration.
You see, using the large Benz's Distronic Plus with Steering Assist attribute, we "drove" for 5 minutes and forty three seconds with out touching a solitary management. This event, which occurred in common Southern California reasonable and-go exercise, broke our explicit report for conceded judiciousness, in addition to our group's strict driving strategy, which signifies that we by no means drive with not precisely one hand on the wheel.
Legitimate recommendation flinched. Protection statisticians hollered. Furthermore some place in Germany a stoic Mercedes architect inclined again, collapsed his arms and broke an unpretentious but fulfilled grin.
Potentially the best supporter to the S550's cool aura is its air-suspended, earnestly damped suspension. The suspension, which is driver movable over two modes (Sport and Comfort), makes use of the stereo Polaroid in Comfort mode to output the road forward and conform the suspension appropriately, another Mercedes calls Magic Body Control ($A,450).
2014 Mercedes-Benz S550 Sedan
With a lot engineering heading the best way, the J coasts over interstate extension joints with unruffled grace. The trip is each wealthy clean and agreeably regulated.
Our analyzer was fitted with 19-crawl 5-spoke wheels as a characteristic of the $H,900 Sport Package, which likewise incorporates certainly one of a form back and front guards and aspect skirts. Despite the truth that its barely a big measure of accomplishment on this class, the R is rather more match than it must be when pushed quickly. Taking care of assessments (sixty five.S-mph slalom, zero.89g slide cushion) do not substantiate its aura when decided with cause.
Breezing via its most thorough take a look at with little or no hassle, the wealthy automotive impacted by way of an expressway doorway incline with out elevating our traveler's circulatory pressure — or her consideration from her cellular phone. So it was unsurprising when date night time superior from a wealthy supper to sucking down solidified yogurt contained in the S550, Burmester sound at full break up. In the occasion that that's not the correct measure of accomplishment in an auto like this, we do not understand what's.
Beginning at $ninety three,825, the S550 is about $10,000 extra extreme than a likewise furnished Audi A8 or BMW S Series. Our analyzer, outfitted with the better a part of the marque's most outstanding tech traits, totaled $116,340.
Here is essential info on 2014 mercedes benz s550 interior. We have the best step for 2014 mercedes benz s550 interior. Check it out for yourself! You can discover When Will 2014 Mercedes Benz S550 Sedan Review Be Released guide and view the latest 2014 Mercedes-Benz S550 Sedan Review in here.


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'Too Big to Fail' Is a Distraction
Amid Washington's legislative gridlock, a desire to break up the nation's megabanks has lit a small flame of bipartisanship.
The group's right wing includes Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. director Thomas Hoenig, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisherand, most recently, conservative columnist George Will. On the left, promising a new bill on the topic co‐sponsored by Sen. David Vitter (R‐La), is Senator Sherrod Brown (D‐Ohio) as well as economist Simon Johnson and others. Since "bipartisan" doesn't necessarily equal "better," this unlikely alliance is based on some shaky assumptions. And the size fetish is obscuring a meaningful inquiry into the real causes of systemic risk.
Assumption 1: The failure of a TBTF firm will result in a systemic crisis.
Despite the ongoing preoccupation with the Lehman bankruptcy, no single bank failure "caused" the 2008 financial crisis. Instead, as economist Anna Schwartz noted (somewhat presciently) in 2008, the crisis was fueled by a marketwide loss of confidence in the balance sheets of many institutions, all holding similar assets — a phenomenon now called "contagion."
Now a megabank failure could pose a systemic risk, but this risk is purely operational. If the bank's core functions are disrupted, the concern is that money won't continue to flow through the system. Pre‐2010 there was no coordinated liquidation process for financial "supermarkets," then subject to a variety of contradictory bankruptcy regimes.
Although Dodd-Frank's orderly liquidation provisions are imperfect, vague and likely give unconstitutional powers to the Treasury secretary, the FDIC has made great strides in developing the single point of entry recapitalization for megabanks. This allows creditors of the failed firm to be converted to equity holders at the holding company level. It wipes out existing equity holders, allowing the subsidiary operations of the bank to continue temporarily without taxpayer assistance. Temporary recapitalization addresses the moral hazard concerns that Hoenig and Fisher have raised because creditors and equity holders, who credibly believe they will be wiped out in a megabank bankruptcy, will not assume an implicit government guarantee and will tailor behavior accordingly.
Assumption 2: TBTF firms have a funding advantage over non‐TBTF firms.
The pro‐downsizing camp argues that firms deemed TBTF secure a funding advantage over non‐TBTF firms because creditors and depositors are more willing to lend to firms that are subject to a government backstop, whether real or perceived. Proponents have also argued that this backstop results in TBTF firms securing higher ratings at the company level and on their public debt, allowing them to borrow more cheaply.
To date, the studies on this topic appear too generalized and speculative to be credible — even Senator Brown asked the GAO to investigate the claim. Additionally, if the funding advantage does exist, it is difficult, if not impossible, to discern whether it was created by an implicit government guarantee or because larger firms finance their activities more cheaply due to size, funding mix and other scale economies. The only thing we can say for certain, as I have noted previously, is that community banks are subject to higher funding costs when compared to banks holding in excess of $10 billion, a category much broader than TBTF institutions.
Furthermore, threatening private firms with potentially destructive action is not the answer to a government‐created funding advantage, if one indeed exists. That is like treating an innocuous symptom and ignoring the serious underlying disease. Prior to 2008, proponents argue, the firms now considered TBTF had no discernible funding advantage. To the extent this advantage now exists, it is a post‐2008 creation based on a perceived government backstop — a self‐fueling monster that came to life.
Dodd-Frank's systemic provisions codified a problem that began with the Treasury's haphazard response to the crisis. (And using the label outside of the banking sector for firms and functions that are clearly not systemic only exacerbates it.) A credible megabank liquidation regime is just as effective in removing this perceived advantage as downsizing the firm, with fewer economic consequences.
Assumption 3: Systemic risk can be addressed at the firm level.
Systemic risk is created by the concentration of risky assets. It is a market, not a firm, issue. Unfortunately, many of the post‐2008 fixes to the financial market are resulting in more, not less, asset concentration. For example, Basel III's risk‐weighting rules encourage banks to concentrate holdings in the sovereign bond market. And when the bond bubble eventually bursts, this will place considerable stress on all banks, regardless of size. (Let's not forget mortgage‐related products' long history of preferential regulatory and capital treatment, perhaps explaining why banks had so many of them on the books in 2007.)
Assumption 4: Reinstating Glass‐Steagall will address TBTF.
Glass‐Steagall cannot address size because it never was about size. The prohibition on the affiliation between commercial and investment banks was rooted in a belief that riskier underwriting and trading activities undermined traditional commercial banking. This sounds reasonable, except that if the 2008 financial crisis proved anything, it was that the more diversified the activities and assets of a bank, the better it will perform when things go wrong. And the loan origination problems at the heart of the subprime mortgage crisis suggest that making loans is just as risky an activity as trading the securities that the loans collateralize.
Assumption 5: U.S. banks are dangerously and unnecessarily large.
The U.S. produces 25% of global GDP. Yet its largest bank ranks only 9th in the world in total assets and will likely drop down the list in the coming years if China and Brazil's megabanks continue their march to supremacy. If the U.S.'s largest banks are downsized, there are plenty of foreign institutions willing to step in and fill the void. Suggesting that there are no economies of scale in banking is like arguing that Walmart has not provided cheaper products to consumers.
While smaller banks may play an important function at the local level, they simply cannot provide all the services that megabanks do and consumers will lose out. Senator Brown's concern for community banks is touching. But even community banks would argue that they are far better served by removing the crushing regulatory weight they have endured since 2008 than by breaking up the megabanks.
Oscar Wilde once noted, "Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong," a maxim Hoenig, Fisher and Will should remember before throwing their collective weight behind Brown's proposal. It's time to acknowledge that breaking up the nation's megabanks will not herald a new Golden Age where market discipline reigns supreme. TBTF is a mythical creation of our own making. The fear, at least, is real.


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Becerra expects immigration bill soon
Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) — a key negotiator on immigration reform on Capitol Hill — said Wednesday that he wouldn't be surprised if bipartisan groups in Congress roll out legislation for comprehensive reform "within the next few weeks."
Becerra, a member of the House group working on immigration reform, said that the "climate was right, both for Democrats and Republicans" for a comprehensive overhaul of the nation's immigration laws.
( PHOTOS: 20 quotes on immigration reform)
"My sense is that both the House and the Senate are hoping to keep pace with the president who has essentially said, 'I'm ready to go,'" Becerra said at POLITICO's post-State of the Union address event.
Meanwhile, Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), who chairs the powerful House Homeland Security Committee, sounded a less optimistic note, saying he's "hopeful" Congress can get something done on immigration this year but conceded that it was a "tricky" issue.
"We can't really have a serious debate about reform on immigration if we don't have operational control of the border," said McCaul, who is set to roll out his framework for border security later on Capitol Hill.
Immigration reform has become one of the dominant issues facing Capitol Hill this year, with bipartisan coalitions in both chambers hammering out the contours of a deal and the political climate the most receptive to reform in years.
President Barack Obama plans to meet with four Democratic negotiators this week and has publicly praised the so-called Gang of Eight senators working on an immigration agreement but made it clear in his address that he wants Congress to pass comprehensive reform in the following few months.
"Leaders from the business, labor, law enforcement, faith communities — they all agree that the time has come to pass comprehensive immigration reform," Obama said. "Now is the time to do it. Now is the time to get it done."
Obama spoke generally about his priorities for a comprehensive immigration bill: one that emphasizes border security but gives the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants a "responsible" pathway to citizenship.
The nation's immigration system should also be set up in a way to become more efficient and attract the world's smartest and most talented workers to the United States, Obama said.
Meanwhile, another major issue for McCaul and his committee — an area that Obama also mentioned in his speech — is cybersecurity. Obama released an executive order on cybersecurity in his address.
"With the executive order out there, with the urgency of the threat, I think it's very likely that we'll get something passed, later this year," McCaul said.


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Judge Michael Aloise served up a lot of "home cooking" for the Queens DA's Office during the Chanel Lewis trial --- what do you expect from somebody with so many connections to that office and the Queens County political establishment
Not only did his ordering a mistrial in the Vetrano-Lewis case pull the fat out of the fire for the prosecution, his earlier evidentiary rulings and strict limitations on the defense's cross-examinations of prosecution witnesses kept the Chanel Lewis team from presenting their best case --- and the good Queens machine judge was covering his own ass for a very flawed trial, one that was rife with reversible error.....
For all of their song and dance, and dog and pony tactics, the NYPD and the Queens DA's Office could not produce a single piece of evidence that Chanel Lewis was present at the time and place of Karina Vetrano's murder --- except for what has clearly been shown to be a coerced and very problematic "confession" by an intellectually challenged young person with special needs, who was first placed in isolation and then "interrogated" overnight without legal representation or any other adult representative present.
So far I have done plenty of commentary on the weaknesses of two parts of the "open and shut case" against Chanel Lewis --- first, the ersatz DNA "matches" to Chanel Lewis found in three places on Ms. Vetrano and/or on her personal possessions; and second, the questionable confession by the Defendant Chanel Lewis, which seems to have all of the facts wrong about the way Karina Vetrano was murdered and/or how murder scene looked. Now, let's look at some of the evidence that was not allowed to get to the jury that might have firmed up their joint several and collective inclinations to acquit the Defendant Chanel Lewis.
First, the trial Judge, Michael Aloise, didn't allow the defense to question prosecution witnesses about the many thousands of hours of video tape of the various approaches to Gateway Park, none of which showed a picture of the defendant entering into, or even at any location near Gateway Park, or exiting from it, at any time relevant to the murder of Karina Vetrano.
Next, we have had a chance to look into a defense analysis of vectors from the various cell towers around East New York and Howard Beach that would have yielded information that, if not clearly contradictory to similar prosecution evidence showing Chanel Lewis might have been near the murder scene, would have yielded an equal probability that Chanel Lewis was in a Brooklyn Park several miles away from the Vetrano murder scene at or near the time that Karina Vetrano was murdered in Gateway Park near the edge of her Howard Beach neighborhood. However, Judge Aloise would not allow the defense to question prosecution witnesses about the pings on vectors to a Brooklyn site where Chanel Lewis said he was around the time of Karina Vetrano's murder ( See "Karina Vetrano Murder Trial Wraps Up After Judge Blocks Video Evidence" by Max Rivlin-Nadler, 11/19/18, Gothamist [http://gothamist.com/2018/11/19/chanel_lewis_video_evidence.php]).
When the defense attempted to get the favorable cell tower information into evidence using an investigator, the testimony was cut off on a narrow issue of discovery and disclosure, because the investigator was referring to investigator's notes, and those notes had been demanded by the prosecution, but had not been turned over prior to the investigator's attempted testimony.
In addition to the cell tower evidence favorable to the defense, there was another "eye witness," whose testimony was blocked by the trial judge, Michael Aloise. According to the Gothamist report by Max Rivlin-Nadler, "... a Verizon employee who was working on a telephone pole along the path that Lewis told investigators during his confession that he had used to enter the park [was expected to testify that he] never saw Lewis enter or leave the park during the time the murder took place...." As with so many other rulings in this case, Queens County Justice Michael Aloise sided with the Queens County DA ruling that the Verizon employee's testimony had "no relevance whatsoever," and that it would needlessly prolong the trial.


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31 January 2013 | News | By BioSpectrum Bureau
(Top) NRCT Invention Award 2013 winner in the engineering and industry category - Dr Thidarat Nimchua and colleague for developing ENZbleach; (middle) winner in the agricultural science and biology category - Dr Oraprapai Gajanandana and team for develo
Singapore: The National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) announced the names of winners of the NRCT Invention Award 2013, on January 24, 2013. Three inventions from Thailand's National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (Biotec) were among the 29 award recipients of the award.
ENZbleach (an alkaline-tolerant enzyme used in the pulp bleaching process), which has been developed by Dr Thidarat Nimchua and colleagues at Biotec's Bioresources Technology Unit, was recognized in the engineering and industry category.
In a conventional chemical bleaching process a large scale of chemicals are used leading to the release of pollutants into the environment and causing numerous harmful disturbances in the ecosystem. Biotec's new biobleaching process using enzymes that leads to a significant reduction of chlorine and chlorine-based compounds. The xylanase attacks hemicellulose and alters the interface between the cellulose and lignin, thereby facilitating the chemical extraction of lignin from pulp. Moreover, ENZbleach is cellulase-free, which means that it will not destroy the structure of cellulose and diminish pulp quality.
The second Biotec product to receive the NRCT award was a diagnostic test that could be used for detection of bacterial fruit blotch in cucurbits. The test, which has been developed by Dr Oraprapai Gajanandana and her team, received the award in the agricultural science and biology category. The team developed the diagnostic test in the forms of ELISA and immunochromatographic strip test based on mouse monoclonal antibodies against Acidovorax avenae subsp.citrulli, a bacterium causing the fruit blotch disease. The test also enables epidemiological studies, disease management and quality control of seeds.
The third Biotec product, Serotyping-NS1-ELISA, which is a method for detection of dengue serotype NS1 protein and is used for serotyping of dengue virus simultaneously, was recognized in the medical science category. The product was developed by Biotec's team led by Dr Chunya Puttikhunt and collaborators from faculty of science, Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol and Chiang Mai Universities.


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Father's Day Fly Fishing with Backwoods
- June 21, 2015 11:00 AM
Join us at the Modern on Father's Day and give dad the experience of trying his hand at something new – casting a fly rod! The team from Backwoods will be out on the reflecting pool from 11 am to 1 pm demonstrating the art of casting, sharing advice, and giving patrons the opportunity to try it for themselves.
Have you made reservations for Father's Day yet? Café Modern will feature a few Father's Day specials in addition to the regular menu. Please call 817.840.2157 for reservations.


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Well, I think it's sort of a double-edged sword. Exams can be a good thing. They can separate the wheat from the chaf, per se. They can tell where some students need extra work, and whether or not a student can cut it in a certain advanced subject, or pass the grade.
Then again, some students - I have friends like this - aren't very good test takers. One friend, really smart (even smarter than me, probably), got a 17 on her ACT (a standardized test in America that judges your apptitude for college; equivocable to the SAT). A decent score on the ACT is a about a 23 or 24. The highest you can get is a 36. I got a 20 on my first try. Sometimes these tests can misjudge a student because he or she doesn't think in standardized test format.
My vote? Yes.
English Teacher


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The first sonar images of the Titanic have been mapped and the ship's debris field is much larger than scientists anticipated. Here's what the dots in the sonar image is actually showing.
We're looking at the Titanic's bow and if you squint your eyes (or can translate sonar) you can see the mast, superstructure, funnel openings and the Grand Staircase. A scientist (who's fluent in sonar) explains:
Click to view
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The good stuff, as in the high resolution 3D version, should be forthcoming. [Expedition Titanic via MSNBC via Boing Boing]


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PhD in Nursing Special Status, Non-degree
An individual who is a student in good standing in any doctoral nursing program may be granted Special Student Status to enroll in a course or courses in the Duquesne University School of Nursing PhD Program. A Special Status student is not required to submit an official transcript of credits earned, but must present a statement written and signed by the administrator of the doctoral program in which the student is enrolled, that the student is in good standing and has permission to enroll at Duquesne.
A Special Status student may be required to submit documentation of completion of prerequisite course work for specific PhD courses.
Enrollment as a Special Status student will be allowed only if class size permits.
1. Download and complete the application form:
Special Status Application
2. Submit a copy of current RN license
3. Submit a statement from the administrator of your current doctoral program
4. Submit a check or money order for $50 application fee (nonrefundable), made payable to Duquesne University
5. Send application form, required documents and fee to:
Duquesne University
School of Nursing
Graduate Applications
600 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15282-1760


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Anyone with an internet connection, almost anywhere on the planet, can type "2207 Seymour Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio" into a Google search and be whisked into a working-class neighborhood of tidy two-stories and postage-stamp lawns. But the house was almost entirely hidden behind a tree when Google's Street View camera rolled past, voraciously documenting the world. Seen but unseen, noticed but unfathomed. Not even the neighbors imagined that the white clapboard structure was a prison or that the fired school-bus driver who lived there was, by all evidence, a monster.
The discovery of three kidnapped women--missing and feared dead for as much as a decade--inside the house on Seymour rattled a nation that can't get used to the banality of evil. Ariel Castro, 52, kept his grass cut, tinkered with his motorcycle, cooked ribs on the grill, played bass in a salsa band. When his friends in the DeJesus family held a vigil for their missing loved one Gina, he was there, watching them weep. All the while Gina was behind the locked doors and blacked-out windows in that house full of ropes and chains, along with Michelle Knight and Amanda Berry.
At last, on the evening of May 6, as a neighbor named Charles Ramsey tucked into his McDonald's supper, the sound of screams and pounding issued from inside 2207. Ramsey dashed up the gray steps to the porch. The voice from inside said she was trapped, that she had been for "a long time." Ramsey kicked a panel out of the door, and Berry escaped, along with her 6-year-old daughter. "Call 911," she said, finally free.
Berry's name was well known to the police, who started searching for her in 2003. Within minutes, dozens of officers were on the scene; they burst through the door, searched the house and freed Knight and DeJesus, who had been missing since 2002 and 2004, respectively. Soon they had Castro in custody. Two days later, he was charged with felony rape and kidnapping.
But questions about the competency of Cleveland's cops followed close behind. Neighbors reported that police were called at least twice to investigate strange noises and unsettling sights at the house and that responding officers did nothing more than knock on the door. Officials said they had no record of those calls and that the one time they visited Castro's home, on a different matter, they noticed nothing suspicious.
This was all too familiar to Cleveland, a once mighty industrial city on the shores of Lake Erie. In 2009 the bodies of 11 missing women were found in the home of a man named Anthony Sowell, and neighbors said the authorities had ignored their complaints of horrid smells coming from the house. A question raised then will no doubt be asked again: Are police in Cleveland--and elsewhere--lax in searching for missing women of color or of scant means?
The shocking news was also a reminder that the death of privacy in America is greatly exaggerated--even as the recent manhunt in Boston proved the growing power of technology to surveil our streets. What the old song says is still true: no one knows what goes on behind closed doors, for better and for worse. Castro constructed his prison on a block where residents don't pry into one another's business. "There are some shady people," said Juan Perez, who lives two doors down from Castro.


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Advanced Search
All seven updates will address critical issues, Microsoft said. Redmond lumped the bulletins into several groups, two of which affect Windows.
All seven updates will address critical issues, Microsoft said. Redmond lumped
the bulletins into several groups, two of which affect Windows, three of which
affect Office, one of which affects Exchange and a final update which affects
Microsoft's CAPICOM and BizTalk Server.
The Windows Critical updates will require a system restart, Microsoft said;
the Office updates may require a restart, as well.
As usual, Microsoft provided few clues as to which updates it plans to deliver.
Microsoft officials did confirm, however, that next Tuesday's patch haul will
include a fix for a DNS vulnerability that affects Windows 2000 Server (all
versions) and Windows Server 2003 (all versions).
"We haven't seen any new information around attacks against the issue
we discussed in Microsoft Security Advisory 935964," wrote Microsoft's
Christopher Budd in a posting
on the MSRC blog. "Also, the listing of updates slated for Tuesday
does include the update we've been working on for this issue."
Last month, Budd indicated that Microsoft hoped to finish
testing the DNS patch in time for Patch Tuesday.
"While we don't have a firm estimate on when we'll complete our development
and testing of updates for this issue, we have teams around the world working
on it 24 hours a day, and hope to have updates no later than May 8, 2007, for
the May monthly bulletin release," he had written on the MSRC blog.
But this is not the full extent of Microsoft's patch plans. The company announced
plans to deliver one non-security, high-priority update for Windows (via Windows
Update and Software Update Services), as well as six non-security, high-priority
updates (via Microsoft Update and Windows Server Update Services). In addition,
Redmond plans to release still another version of its Windows Malicious Software
Removal Tool.
Thursday's advance notification isn't always the last word in Patch Tuesday
deliverables, of course. Earlier this year, for example, Microsoft yanked several
promised Windows patches from its Patch Tuesday payload. Redmond typically pulls
a patch if it discovers problems during testing, or if it identifies other issues.
About the Author
Stephen Swoyer is a Nashville, TN-based freelance journalist who writes about technology.
Your personal data is just as vulnerable to disk failures and ransomware as corporate data. But right now, there are threats that are more difficult to protect against: wildfires and hurricanes.
Microsoft described a couple of developments along SharePoint product lines during a Tuesday Ignite online keynote talk.
Despite the strangeness of the keynote, Microsoft pulled off some its most geek-worthy product demos at Ignite this week.
Improvements in the Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM) management solution were part of Tuesday's Microsoft Ignite online event.
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Characteristics of Li-Cells
During the last decade Lithium batteries have replaced other battery types in many applications. The main reasons for this are their ability to store large amounts of energy in a small volume and their light weight. The gravimetric or volumetric energy density is much greater than in other secondary batteries. This makes them particularly suitable for laptops, handheld tools and lights. They have, depending on the cell chemistry, a low internal resistance and therefore can supply high currents. The recharge time is in the range of 3-4h. They have no or only a very limited fast charge capability.
Unfortunately, the benefits are offset by some disadvantages. Lithium is a highly reactive light metal. If operated outside a by the manufacturer specified save area they can easily ignite and cause fire or even explode. Especially dangerous are short circuits and overcharging due to a defective charger, since this can lead to a strong heating of the cells. A single deep discharge below a certain boarder will damage them permanently. Lithium battery packs are therefore always fitted with an additional safety circuit, whose job it is to prevent these operating states. It simply separates the entire pack from the charger or the load if operated outside the save area. The safety circuit monitors the voltages of each single cell in a pile of in series-connected cells, the charge or discharge current and the temperature of the pile. Improving the intrinsic safety of the cells is a main goal of the cell manufacturers. For this reason some cell types (eg lithium cobalt) have lost their importance while the spread of other cell types increases.
To learn more, visit our Battery seminar at akkuman.de. It is performed in a more or less regular intervals. Ask akkuman.de for the next date, the venue and the costs.
continue reading --> Charging Li-Cells


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Read Alison Moroney's daily horoscopes for Wednesday, January 9, 2013.ARIES: Between January 9 and February 2 Arians will be able to achieve recognition for work and contribute to a flourishing personal bank account. Best days are January 9-11, 16-18.
TAURUS: Until February 2 your mind will respond positively to stimuli, whether it comes via overseas contact, entertainment or work. You thoroughly enjoy these experiences.
GEMINI: In the weeks to February 2, you will be luckier than usual in speculation. Your love life stands a good chance of improving, although some problems will crop up.
CANCER: The relationship with the love of your life will improve tremendously between January 9 and February 2, with opportunities for shared special moments, especially on January 9-11, 16-18.
LEO: Until February 2 you will derive greater pleasure from your work, as you enjoy a more substantial success cycle and achieve your objectives through communication skills and planning.
VIRGO: The three-plus weeks from January 9 will produce delightful moments with a loved one or your children. Speculation and other financial interests will prove to be profitable.
LIBRA: Many Librans will entertain at home, redecorate, or simply enjoy their haven and the companionship of family until February 2. Make the most of January 9-11, 16-18.
SCORPIO: Until February 2 you'll sort out any problems that arise with neighbours and relatives. Take a moment to choose your words. Trends are active on January 9-14, 16-18.
SAGITTARIUS: Until February 2 you will make more money from a variety of sources, increasing your enjoyment of work and enabling a better social life. Utilise January 9-11, 16-18 to do so.
CAPRICORN: During the coming weeks you will be happier with conditions in your public and private lives. Romance and children will provide many moments of pleasure, with the best promised on January 9-11, 16-18.
AQUARIUS: Until February 2, life will quieten down considerably as you must make a greater effort to contribute to the well being of others, as well as to looking after your own interests.
PISCES: Between January 9 and February 2 you will be spending more time in the company of friends, with many Pisceans able to establish new friendships. Highlights include January 9-11, 16-18.
LUCKY NUMBERS: Aries: 1, 3, 4, 9; Taurus: 5, 8; Gemini: 6, 7; Cancer: 3, 4, 7, 9; Leo: 1, 3, 4, 9; Virgo: 6, 8; Libra: 5, 7; Scorpio: 2, 3, 7, 9; Sagittarius: 1, 3, 4, 9; Capricorn: 5, 6; Aquarius: 5, 6; Pisces: 2, 4, 7.


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From letters published in the February 1, 1881, edition of Harper's Young People, a spinoff of Harper's for readers six to sixteen.
Will Mary R., of Sunbury, Pennsylvania, please oblige me by giving her method of cultivating heliotrope, as it is one of my favorites, and I can never succeed in raising it. I have over two hundred plants in my parlor and sitting-room windows, and not one heliotrope.
I have a beautiful black goat named Dan, and a complete set of silver-plated harness … Dan will not allow any boy to come near him, but he loves me dearly, and I love him. I am eleven years old.
I and my brother used to have such good times fishing on these lakes in our canoes, and hunting deer in the woods, but now I am so lonely, for my only brother is dead. He went out in the woods to hunt deer, and got lost, and froze to death.
I am a subscriber to Young People, and although I am not one of the "little folks," I find the Post-office Box very interesting, as I am very fond of children and of pets. I have a bright, intelligent pony, a Mexican dog four years old that does not weigh more than two pounds, a mocking-bird, canaries, and a lot of fancy pigeons, and two aquaria filled with fish.
In my letter printed in Young People No. 62 I intended to say that I would exchange postmarks, not for other postmarks, but for stamps and minerals. I regret that I made the mistake.
I am very much interested in "Toby Tyler" and "Mildred's Bargain."
I spent one summer at Cape May, and there I found a turtle that was so tame it would eat out of my hand, and drink out of a tea-spoon. I fed it on raw meat, soaked bread, and worms, but it ran away.


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Apparel deal for Manziel looming
SAN ANTONIO — Despite advertising banners on its Baltimore campus welcoming Johnny Manziel as its newest endorser, an Under Armour spokesman said late Tuesday that no deal has been struck with the apparel company and the former Texas A&M quarterback.
Manziel was in Baltimore earlier this week meeting with company officials, but company spokesman Tai Foster denied that an agreement with the Kerrville Tivy grad had been completed.
"We only comment on athletes that are currently part of Under Armour's elite roster of world-class athletes," Foster said in a statement.
The Baltimore Sun reported a deal with Manziel was looming after signs appeared in at least two locations at Under Armour's headquarters welcoming Manziel to "the team."
But it's not unusual for the company to hang those types of signs when potential clients visit as part of negotiations. It appears the Baltimore newspaper accepted it as fact that Manziel and Under Armour had agreed to a deal.
The company was preoccupied after a mammoth snowstorm along the East Coast, yet made perhaps its largest announcement in history when it revealed a 10-year landmark apparel deal with Notre Dame. Sources told ESPN.com that the value of the deal, in combined cash and merchandise, is worth about $90 million.
Texas Tech, Navy, Maryland, South Carolina, Utah, Northwestern and Boston College are among the 13 FBS schools the company has agreements with.
It also has lucrative endorsement deals with several NFL players, most notably Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. Under Armour also has a deal with ballerina Misty Copeland, a soloist with the American Ballet Theater.
Manziel would fit nicely into that portfolio as the company attempts to slide past Adidas for second place in the football apparel market behind monolith Nike.
Manziel might have tipped off his interest in Under Armour when a recent photo on Instagram showed him interacting with quarterback coach George Whitfield Jr., while wearing Under Armour cleats.
Negotiations likely will be continuing, and it wouldn't be a surprise if Under Armour wants to complete the deal in time for the media circus in New York next week ahead of Super Bowl XLVIII.
Twitter: @TimGriffinBig12


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Torii crashes into wall, day to day with bruised knee
LOS ANGELES -- For the second time in six months, Torii Hunter was injured crashing into an outfield barrier. This time, it was the short wall down the right-field line at Dodger Stadium, and it eventually forced him out of Tuesday's series opener with a bruised left knee.
Whether it sidelines him any further remains to be seen. Officially, he's listed as day to day, and manager Brad Ausmus sounds inclined to rest him Wednesday with an off-day coming Thursday. Hunter, however, sounded like he might push to play.
"My knee swelled up on me," Hunter said. "They actually got some of the swelling down. Tomorrow I'll come into the clubhouse and if it feels good, I think I'm going to play. But I'm going to play it safe."
Hunter went sliding feet-first into the wall chasing a second-inning foul ball sliced down the line by Dodgers catcher Tim Federowicz. The ball landed in the seats, but Hunter didn't, with his entire left side taking the brunt of the impact.
"It was a tough play," Hunter said. "It's weird over there, because you have the foul line right next to the wall. You just don't want to give up on a ball because it might stay fair. So you do whatever you can, whatever maneuver you can come up with, to try to keep that ball from bouncing on that line.
"But there's no room in foul territory. Once you pass that line, you're going to hit the wall. Just the style that I play, it's going to play rough."
Hunter stayed on the ground for a couple of minutes while head athletic trainer Kevin Rand jogged out from the dugout.
Rand spent most of his time flexing Hunter's knee. Hunter stayed in the game and took a called third strike in the third inning. The swelling in the knee, however, built up until he could barely move it. Don Kelly was spotted with a bat in his hands in the top half of the inning, presumably to hit for Hunter if his spot came up. Once the inning ended, Kelly took the field in Hunter's spot.
"I couldn't run anymore," Hunter said. "It started swelling up. When you hit something, your adrenaline is good, let's go. And about 30 minutes later, it just swelled up and I couldn't run. It was smart to come out."
Hunter, of course, provided one of the most famous photos in recent postseason history last October when he went flipping over the right-field fence and into the bullpen at Fenway Park trying to catch David Ortiz's game-tying grand slam in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series. He remained in that game, but was bruised and hampered to some extent for the rest of the series and admitted later he played through considerable discomfort.
"I think this hurt worse," Hunter said. "I felt that pain for two months, of course, because it was my total body, but this hurts."


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Hey all,
Yes, this time I promise to post the winners earlier than a year after the contest is over. As a little add-on to the CCC, I'm again going to make some cross-category awards. These are separate from the contest judging. Winners will be given special forum titles that you'll have for a year or so or until you get renamed noob of the week for doing something dumb. Try to incorporate the following into your builds:
Historian - Use your entry to teach us something about medieval life or real historical people and events.
Friend - Include elements from the Friends line (even figs) in a clever way.
Collectible - Prominently feature a fig from the Collectible line (any series).
NPU - Utilize a 'useless part' - that is, one that is definitely not intended for castle building (aside from a Friends part, I guess).
Scales - Somehow mix scales in your fig-scaled MOC - maybe by incorporating microscale to give forced perspective, or introduce a giant to your minifigs, etc.
Humor - Make us laugh with your entry.
Best Use of Duplo - Use Duplo to give your castle MOC that extra edge. (Hint: We need to be able to see the Duplo)


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It's obvious we provide structural columns and beams. We also design, fabricate, erect and install joists, supports, decks, embeds, louvers and more. As custom fabricators we make and install machine parts, steel curtain wall frames, and interesting shaped plates and supports. We service all types of large commercial projects, and work with new buildings as well as reinforcing existing ones. Go ahead and browse our extensive range of structural steel services .
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While many Metal Fabrication services in Sunset FL have become masters at straight fabrication, we've gone above and beyond to become experts at all types of custom metal fabrication: bendy, cut, and curved. This makes us the preferred choice for all your metal fabrication services on things like HVAC Mounting Frames, evaporator units, frames, and curbs, heavy equipment parts and specialist beams to fit your architectural project. At Steel Beams Columns, we undergo an in depth metal fabrication process to ensure you the perfect fit. Our process includes sourcing OEM Specs cutting for your perfect size and shape, welding your parts together, putting on finishings, and presenting you with the final prototype. Whatever your specs are, our custom Metal Fabrication in Sunset FL services will create a solution best suited for your needs. Some buildings have limiting factors such as space constraints, or existing obstructions and that is exactly what we are here for. The Metal Fabrication in Sunset FL service professionals at Steel Beams Columns will not only create a customized solution for your space, we will install it as well. Our team is fully trained in the design, erection and installation of non-linear steel. We specialize in the installation of your most difficult hard to imagine projects. For commercial CMU buildings requiring there 40-50 year building recertification steel supports are the most cost effective way to reinforce the building to obtain certification. You can be assured there'll be no problem dealing with things like space constraints, or existing obstructions. As a Florida business, we are experts in flooding and hurricanes. Count on our professional Metal Fabrication in Sunset FL services to create and work with the right HVAC frames for your Building roof top. Your safety is our top priority, we've made it our duty to become experts in best roofing practices to mitigate damage from hurricanes and flooding.
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Straight, pitched, curved and rolled, at SBC, we're mad about beams! From plate girders to web openings we design and install the correct beam for your structure.
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When Broward Waste Water needed a 12" gas pipe replaced for their Digester, they came straight to SBC. And although it was one of our smaller jobs, we took the same...
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Without question, Curtain Wall Systems are one of the most popular window solutions in Florida. And it is SBC who fabricates and installs the solid steel frames for these magjestic...
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When Broward Waste Water needed a 12" gas pipe replaced for their Digester, they came straight to SBC. And although it was one of our smaller jobs, we took the same...
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In this hurricane and flood prone state, we take the utmost care and attention detail in the design and construction of your roof, or metal canopy. Whether you have pitched...
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text: Booking « Find the right consultant Coronavirus Read our latest update here If you feel you need to cancel your appointment, please use our cancellation form here Please complete the form below, making sure you provide us with as much detail as possible. We aim to answer all enquiries within 24 hours, but due to high volume we sometimes might not be able to do so. Privacy Policy *Required field. Treatment details Preferred hospital Choose a Hospital Aberdeen, BMI Albyn Hospital Ayrshire, BMI Carrick Glen Hospital Bath and North East Somerset, BMI Bath Clinic Bedfordshire, BMI The Manor Hospital Berkshire, BMI The Princess Margaret Hospital Buckinghamshire, BMI The Chiltern Hospital Buckinghamshire, BMI The Saxon Clinic Bucks, BMI The Shelburne Hospital Carmarthenshire, BMI Werndale Hospital Cheshire, BMI The Alexandra Hospital Cheshire, BMI The South Cheshire Private Hospital City of Glasgow, BMI Ross Hall Hospital County Durham, BMI Woodlands Hospital Dorset, BMI The Harbour Hospital Dorset, BMI The Winterbourne Hospital Dundee, BMI Dundee Outpatients Centre Essex, BMI Southend Private Hospital Greater Manchester, BMI The Beaumont Hospital Hampshire, BMI Sarum Road Hospital Hampshire, BMI The Hampshire Clinic Hertfordshire, BMI Bushey Consulting Rooms Kent, BMI Chelsfield Park Hospital Kent, BMI The Chaucer Hospital Kent, BMI The Sloane Hospital Lancashire, BMI Gisburne Park Hospital Lancashire, BMI The Beardwood Hospital Lancashire, BMI The Highfield Hospital Lancashire, BMI The Lancaster Hospital Lincolnshire, BMI The Lincoln Hospital London, BMI Hendon Hospital London, BMI The Blackheath Hospital London, BMI The London Independent Hospital Middlesex, BMI Bishops Wood Hospital Middlesex, BMI Syon Clinic Middlesex, BMI The Cavell Hospital Middlesex, BMI The Clementine Churchill Hospital Middlesex, BMI The Kings Oak Hospital Norfolk, BMI The Sandringham Hospital Northamptonshire, BMI Three Shires Hospital Nottinghamshire, BMI The Park Hospital South Yorkshire, BMI Thornbury Hospital Stirlingshire, BMI Kings Park Hospital Suffolk, BMI St Edmunds Hospital Surrey, BMI Mount Alvernia Hospital Surrey, BMI Shirley Oaks Hospital Surrey, BMI The Runnymede Hospital Test Site DO NOT USE Warwickshire, BMI The Meriden Hospital West Midlands, BMI Sutton Medical Centre West Midlands, BMI The Edgbaston Hospital West Midlands, BMI The Priory Hospital West Sussex, BMI Goring Hall Hospital West Yorkshire, BMI The Huddersfield Hospital Wiltshire, BMI The Ridgeway Hospital Worcestershire, BMI The Droitwich Spa Hospital Yorkshire, BMI The Duchy Hospital Treatment required Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy PEG PleaseSelect Upper GI endoscopy and dilatation Upper GI endoscopy gastroscopy Preferred consultant Select a consultant Aamir Iqbal Zubairy Adnan Sheikh Alexander Baker Alistair Henderson Andrew Philip Bowden Andrew Sloan Antonio Belloso Anu Daudia Aprajay Golash Asad M Rahi Ashley Topps Atir Khan Bertie Surgith Fernando Charles Grimley Clare Cullen Colin Harris Damien Lynch David Andrew Evans David Enion David Paul McDowell Duncan Gavan E Nanda Kumar Elaine Anne Young Fawad Mahmud Zaman Fizan Younis Gareth Howell Gary Craig Smith Cousin Gordon James Shepard Gurvinder Banait Hans Marynissen Ian Halliday Coulson Irfan Hafeez Jagdish Raghvan Adiyodi Jeyaram Srinivasan Joe Collum John Calvey John McDonald Joshua Adedokun Kanarath Balachandran Karuppana Mohan Pillai Ken McAlister Kevin Robert Sharpe Lyndon Stewart Jones Magdy Aglan Makaram Srinivasan Marcus S Wise Marian Macheta Mark James Willett Mark Joseph Vose Mark Tomlinson Martin Stuart Hogg Mey Mohan Mike Dobson Mohamed Abdel Aty Mohammad Mutaaz Masaarane Muthiah Sivaramalingam Nadir Ali Nihal Trevor Gurusinghe Packeer Saleem Patrick John Watmough Patrick Scott Paul Warwicker Philip David Pradeep Morar Qaisar Akhlaq Choudry Rajan Mohan Rajkumar Ariyaratnam Randeep Mohil Ravi Goyal Ravi Singh Richard Boden Richard David Dobrashian Richard Mark Graham Saif Hadi Salwa Abugreen Sandip Shaunak Sanjay Banypersad Scot Garg Shabbir Saifuddin Susnerwala Shah Hassan Khan Shahid Islam Shalom Srirangam Shivashanker Kodi Aithal Simon Christopher Hardy Simon Hill Simon Peter Hargreaves Sriranga H Kamath Suresh Chhetri Surya Narayan Vikas Shankar Vinod Shah Wesam Aleid Yacoob Nakhuda Contact details Title * Miss Mr Mrs Ms First name * Last name * Email address * Contact telephone number * Postcode * Password Confirm Password Password must be a minimum of 8 characters and should contains at least one upper case, lower case, numeric and a non-alphanumeric character. e.g. Password123& Backup telephone * Back to top Facebook Twitter Linked in Pinterest


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20 years on from landmark Redfern address
By: Lindy Kerin
ASHLEY HALL: It's considered one of the most important speeches in Australia's political history.
Twenty years ago next week, the then prime minister Paul Keating delivered what's become known as the Redfern Speech.
It put reconciliation between black and white Australians firmly on the political agenda and some say it paved the way for the formal apology to Indigenous Australians.
PAUL KEATING: It was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life.
We brought the diseases and the alcohol.
We committed the murders.
We took the children from their mothers.
We practiced discrimination and exclusion.
It was our ignorance and our prejudice, and our failure to imagine that these things could be done to us.
ASHLEY HALL: Gail Mabo, the daughter of the late land rights activist Eddie Mabo, is in Sydney to mark the anniversary.
She's speaking here to Saturday AM's Lindy Kerin.
GAIL MABO: The Keating speech, it actually - it was after the decision of Mabo that it was time for change, and I think that with Paul Keating's speech it was, it reflected his view of that time for a change and time for acknowledgment.
And so with that that I thought it was wonderful.
LINDY KERIN: What did it mean to you at the time when you heard his speech?
GAIL MABO: What I saw on the news was that he did it in Redfern, and it was that thing of like, wow many other politicians do you know who would take the time out to deliver a speech to the people, for the people, at the space of the people?
I thought that reflected very highly on the man who was one for change, and didn't care like well, didn't care that he upset people, but he had to deliver it to the people in the right space. And I think when he delivered it in Redfern, and on The Block, it was like an OMG moment.
And it was like I thought this man's got something.
LINDY KERIN: So 20 years on, what sort of place do you think that speech has in Australia's political history?
GAIL MABO: It's one that people should actually look at and reflect on, because the words he was saying in that, it reflects that issue of change. But it's a thing of like through small things, big things will happen. But change will happen.
You know it mightn't be right here, right now, but it's just changing people's attitudes, and that's what he was doing with this speech. He was trying to get into people's heads that it is time for change.
LINDY KERIN: And 20 years on, do you think things have changed?
GAIL MABO: Twenty years on, it's through baby steps. So I think baby steps have happened, but we still need to gain a bit more momentum and still recognise and appreciate the first peoples.
LINDY KERIN: This year also marked the 20th anniversary of the Mabo decision. When you look back at that time, what sort of feelings do you have about that time?
GAIL MABO: Same, same - it's a thing - very proud of my dad, but oh my God, it's 20 years?
And it's a long time that - well, it's the understanding that Indigenous people were the first peoples here and you have to acknowledge that. And it's only through those little things. And people realise that no, we're not out to take your backyard, we're not out to do those sort of things. So we're going to move on and move on together.
ASHLEY HALL: Gail Mabo speaking to Lindy Kerin.


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Eminem (aka Marshall Mathers) will star in the boxing drama, Southpaw, for DreamWorks. Mathers will play "a fast-rising welterweight boxer who brawls his way to the title, only to see his world crash down around him due to tragedy." DreamWorks bought the film from a pitch by Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter, who aims to have a screenplay draft ready by February, before he has to start preparing the fourth season of Sons of Anarchy.
Southpaw marks Mathers' return to acting after earning a lot of critical praise for his debut performance in 2002's 8 Mile. Hit the jump to read about why Mathers chose Southpaw to be his return to acting, and what will make the film a semi-continuation of 8 Mile.
According to Sutter, Mathers and he have been trying to do something together for the past 7 years. Sutter told Deadline:
"I know he's very selective and doesn't do a lot. But he shared so much of his personal struggle in this raw and very honest album, one that I connected with on a lot of levels. He is very interested in the boxing genre, and it seemed like an apt metaphor, because his own life has been a brawl."
Sutter then spoke about how the film will be a semi-continuation of 8 Mile in the sense that the film will be a "metaphorical narrative" of Mathers' life since the film's story will relate to Mathers' own struggles:
"In a way, this is a continuation of the 8 Mile story, but rather than a literal biography, we are doing a metaphorical narrative of the second chapter of his life. He'll play a world champion boxer who really hits a hard bottom, and has to fight to win back his life for his young daughter. At its core, this is a retelling of his struggles over the last five years of his life, using the boxing analogy. I love that the title refers to Marshall being a lefty, which is to boxing what a white rapper is to hip hop; dangerous, unwanted and completely unorthodox. It's a much harder road for a southpaw than a right handed boxer."
I was one of the many people who was blown away by Mathers' performance in 8 Mile and I've always been hoping that he would return to acting someday. Hopefully, the wait has been worth it and Mathers sees something truly great in Southpaw. I'm definitely curious and I'm very interested in seeing which director signs on to the project in the future.


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Updated On: Jun 27, 2013


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Aside from the fact that Cosmopolitan paid substantially more than the two-cents-a-word rate common in the pulp world, it afforded the author a significantly larger audience, and -- believe it or not -- a more upscale audience, a fact that must beggar belief to anyone looking at the covers of recent issues of this woman's magazine. With headlines such as "Guys Rate 50 Sex Movies," "How to Outsmart a Bitch." "50 Things to Do Butt Naked" and the highly doubtful "The Sex Article We Can't Describe Here!" it is completely understandable that most modern readers have difficulty wrapping their heads around the fact that Cosmopolitan began life as a premier fiction magazine, and that it once led with fiction, and even that it once marketed itself without prejudice to either gender. Helen Gurley Brown changed all that when she took over as editor in 1965, but even then the change was gradual. Back in its heyday Cosmopolitan was a highly respected publisher of fiction -- popular fiction, to be sure -- but fiction nonetheless, featuring authors of every level of the business, including Ernest Hemmingway, Ambrose Bierce, Sinclair Lewis, Damon Runyon, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton and A.J. Cronin.
After World War II the magazine shifted slightly and began including many popular writers, some graduating from the then-dying pulps, and including names like John Cheever, A.A. Milne, Mary Roberts Reinhart, Agatha Christie, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Patricia Highsmith, Ian Fleming and, of course, John D MacDonald.
MacDonald's first sale to Cosmopolitan took place in 1947 with the publication of his crime tale "The Pay-Off". It was the author's third sale to a large-circulation slick magazine, following appearances in Esquire and Liberty. "Pickup" was published the following year, in the February 1948 issue. It's not a mystery and contains no crime whatsoever, unless one considers a tired premise and an artificial situation as crimes. It certainly has the feel of the author "writing to market," despite his protestations that he never did such a thing. Worst of all, it features a female protagonist -- thankfully revealed in the third person -- who is dealing with decidedly female problems, and if MacDonald had any weakness, it was getting inside the heads of women. Not that he couldn't do it on occasion, usually with secondary characters, but the author's singular ability to create fictional people who seem uncannily real seemed to fail him when it came to the ladies. Examples include Alice Furmon in Contrary Pleasure, Judy Jonah in All These Condemned or Ginny Sherrel in Murder in the Wind. (His bad girls, on the other hand, are usually marvelous creations.)
There's nothing really wrong with MacDonald's depiction of Catherine, the subject of "Pickup," but then there's nothing really deep about her either. JDM's attempts at meaningful introspection in Catherine are done so with overly-florid language that makes it seem like a smokescreen, covering up something the author really didn't understand. In the end "Pickup" is unsatisfying and almost trite, although it's subject matter is anything but, and one gets the feeling that in more competent (and female) hands, this could have been a deeper story.
Catherine Hazard is a young housewife, the mother of two young children and married to Carl, a man twelve years her senior. The family lead a seemingly happy and fulfilling life in a midsized city -- Carl has a good job as an accountant with a building contractor and Catherine is a stay-at-home mom (this is, after all, America in 1948). But something is not right, at least with Catherine. A darkness is creeping into her soul, an emptiness whose cause she is unable to identify.
"[She] looked out the wide front window, saw the street distorted by the large wet flakes that melted against the glass -- and something in the wet asphalt's shining, something about the yellow of the early street lights, the soggy fall of snow, called up the feeling of emptiness, of strangeness that had haunted her for over a month."
As she awaits the arrival of her two children from grade school, she contemplates her husband Carl's return from work at five and it brings another dark shadow across her mind.
"Thinking of him brought back the new dark feeling of aloneness, and she knew that it was tied up with him somehow, but there was no way for her to find out. The new feeling was something restless within her that receded as she tried to grasp it, to find its component parts, its chemical analysis."
She wonders if this first autumn with both kids out of the house during the day has brought about her feelings, with the silences offering more time to think about herself.
"[As she looked around the house, it] looked different. She saw frayed edges where before she had seen newness and adequacy. She felt the smallness of the house; the constriction and tension building within her was like a spring, which, if released, would flatten the walls, send the roof sailing off, open the square rooms to the gray sky above."
This foreboding fades away as the kids come in and, later, Carl arrived home. This is the typical MacDonald family unit, one he used in virtually all of his early This Week stories, where there was never any gloom or feelings of doom, and here we are presented with the hardworking husband, weary from work but shrugging off that weariness once he sees his wife and kids. And MacDonald is at pains to depict Catherine as a good wife, loving, supportive and properly domesticated. After dinner she has more housework to do, but with the kids put to bed all she wants to do is "sit and look at Carl's strong square hands holding the [newspaper.]" When Carl gets up and announces that he has to return to work for a few hours, Catherine sees the weariness in his eyes "and she [wants] to hold him tightly, somehow to rest and restore him." Even a troubled housewife in 1948 couldn't resist her innate impulse to be an Earth Mother.
Carl senses something wrong with his wife and asks her about it. Catherine deflects any idea that there might be something wrong, but when Carl shrugs off his concern by blaming "the old differential" -- their pronounced difference in ages -- Catherine inwardly wonders if he has put his finger on exactly what ails her.
"There had been dancing and music and brightness, and in the middle of it all Carl had come along, with his steady eyes and gentle hands, and before long the world had become a place full of grocery bills and washing and cleaning and formulas and bitter fights with the man from the diaper service. Maybe the sense of loneliness came from the thought of time going by, each second a knife that neatly sliced off a small chunk of the only life given her."
A few moments later the doorbell rings and it is the babysitter, arriving on the wrong night. But Catherine urges her to stay and watch the kids anyway so she can go out for a long walk, to be by herself for a while and contemplate her feelings. Here follows many column inches of prose as Catherine wanders the snow-covered streets, looking at life going on around her. She spends a few minutes in a hotel lobby, imagines herself to be an actress in a movie, fends off a would-be suitor who offers to buy her a drink, and without realizing it, begins to weep.
On her way home she is walking down her street when a car comes up behind her and follows. Catherine begins to walk faster, but the horn beeps a familiar beep and she turns to see her own car with Carl behind the wheel.
Carl: "You going my way, lady?"
Catherine (affecting coyness): "And what way would you be going?"
Carl: "Oh, I thought I might go out on the turnpike and buy a beer or two. Come along. I'm harmless."
Now if this were a really cool John D MacDonald pulp tale, Carl would be someone else -- a "sex maniac" or something -- and Catherine would be in a in a mood to expiate her depression with a mad fling, only to be terribly sorry for doing so once she got into the car (see "Jail Bait"). Or even better, Carl would be himself, but suffering some sort of psychotic reverie, and it's later revealed that he has been secretly trying to kill Catherine since last year! ("Mr.Killer") But no, this is a JDM social tale, so the reader has to suffer through an extended scene of this married couple pretending to be strangers, the only way -- apparently -- that they can reveal their true hearts to each other. The ending of "Pickup" is as glib as anything MacDonald was ever guilty of writing.
MacDonald continued to pen these kinds of "women's stories" throughout his career, and the pages of magazines like McCall's, Good Housekeeping, Woman's Home Companion and Redbook are full of them. He got better as he went along, and some of these stories are incredibly well done. It should be remembered that "Pickup" was published only nine months after he had his first story published in a real magazine, so I suppose I should cut him some slack. Yet when the ultimate John D MacDonald short story anthology is finally published (yes, I'm dreaming), "Pickup" shouldn't be included.
MacDonald was rarely what one could call a pretentious writer. He dealt straightforwardly with his subject matter and told a tale as well as any writer who ever lived. Yet his invention of story titles reveals a side to him that the general reading public didn't see. In the case of "Pickup," MacDonald should have gotten down on his knees and thanked fiction editor Dale Eunson for sparing him the embarrassment of his original title: "A Soupcon of Despair."
The MacDonalds were living in Clinton, New York when JDM wrote this story, and were still there when it was published. He wrote a column for the local paper during those day, and he mentioned "Pickup" in one of his rare moments of self-revelation. Under the headline "ADVERTISEMENT" he wrote (using that annoying royal "we"):
Strange things happen in this business of putting words on paper, and in the interests of breaking a wrist, slapping our own back, and in order to bolster the sagging newstand sales of our major masterworks, we herewith record this one.
This is the month in which we became the composite author, the cross section of American scribblers. All at the same time, and all on the same newstand we were shocked to find ourselves published as follows:
One gentle little love story in Cosmopolitan entitled "Pickup."
One humorous story in Blue Book entitled "The Pastel Production Line."
One sports story in Sports Fiction entitled "Punch Your Way Home".
One story of politics and murder in New Detective entitled "One Vote for Murder."
One psychological crime story in Dime Detective entitled "High Walls of Hate."
One worlds-of-the-future story in [Astounding] Science Fiction entitled "Cosmetics".
The thing which gives us pause is the fact that not yet have we ever written a story of which we are completely proud. We are serving an apprenticeship to the Angry Gods of the Typewriter, but we can't bury our lesser efforts. We have to sell them for grocery money. It's a good thing they don't let doctors practice this way.


text: Guest blogging is a great tool in hands of any blogger. Especially if you land a spot on some of the more powerful blogs on the internet. I've landed guest blogging opportunities on Firepole Marketing and Laura Roeder and I am super excited to announce that I will be guest blogging on Problogger. My post should come out in August. I'll keep you updated when the exact date has arrived. The interesting thing is this is not my first pitch to them. Sometimes you just have to try again and that's exactly what I did. I am very excited about my spot on Problogger because they are allowing me to do something that most people don't do. I've had many bloggers ask me the best method for landing a guest post. Watch this weeks blogging Q&A for some of those answers. If you liked the video please comment below or like it on Youtube


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11 October 2015: Starved Rock State Park Trail leading from Parkman's Plain to the river trail. Scenics from along the Illinois River Scenic Road and sites along the drive. All images were between Ottawa and East Peoria.
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